So much for a free day... - Photo

Well, let's just say that if this is how free days will be...I don't want any more! Lisa and I were supposed to have a day of freedom, time to ourselves before things get incredibly busy, but so much for that idea. We had a youth event this morning with Jacob and the youth at the Central Church. We had to get some stuff from the camp and take it to the city for the event. Afterwards, we had the night and the next day free. We borrowed Kristal's truck so that we could not only carry the stuff to the youth event, but also so that we would have a car in order to stay in San Salvador. We were going to get a hotel room to get away from the camp for a night, planned on going out to eat somewhere nice and maybe catch a movie. Well, you see what happened was...

We loaded the stuff for the event by backing into the area by the sewing room. I didn't realize that a lot of the area of the camp is set on terraced landings because the camp is built on the slope of the volcano crater. So, I backed in by the door and started to pull out and turn so that we could leave. Lisa thought I knew about said landings and I pulled out and suddenly we came to a halt. Not so much a screeching halt, but more a sudden "THUMP" of a halt, as the front end of the truck left the landing and rested on the cement wall ON THE FRONT AXLE! Neither front tire was touching and the back tires were spinning without getting grip. Meanwhile, everyone else had already left the camp for the event (and my pride was thankful no one saw my blunder) and so we had to get the guard. God managed to look on us with favor, probably as He laughed at my idiocy, and John Strean happened to be on site. John is the resident mechanic MA for Castle. He came down and after an hour's worth of sweating, moving wood to make a ramp, and raising the front of the car with a jack we finally got the car off the landing without any damage and Lisa and I were off to start our day.

The youth event went off without a hitch and at lunch we took off into the city for our time away. Well, neither of us had driven much in El Salvador and all we had was a map to guide us through the confusing streets of San Salvador. After an hour of roaming through the side streets of San Salvador we managed to find the hotel, grabbed some food, and checked into our air conditioned haven away from the madness. Lisa laid down to rest and I worked some on the computer. At about 5 pm I started getting antsy because I wanted to go out and do something so I woke her up. We planned on going to eat at Benihana's, which is far cheaper here than in the States, and so she started to wake up as I went in the bathroom to get ready.

As I entered the bathroom I noticed that the air was hotter in there than in the room and that was because there was a window open over the bathtub. So, not wanting to air condition all of the city I decided to close the window. Life lesson #3784: When staying in a hotel and something doesn't work, get a staff person to fix it...NOT YOU! As you can guess, the window wouldn't close so I pulled on it with both hands and it slammed down...trapping my middle finger between the window and the window sill. The window bounced off my finger and back open (all of my grunting in vain). I shook my hand and looked thinking that I had merely smashed it. In horror I saw my finger cut from side to side at the top knuckle and because it was bent my first thought was, "I just cut the tip of my finger off!"

Meanwhile, Lisa only heard "THUD" and "Dang it" from the bathroom, which is a common sound in our house. I often hit my head on things so a "THUD" and a "Dang it" isn't a new thing. I said I had cut myself and she asked if I needed to get stitches. Face drained of color I exited the bathroom and Lisa came over to see my mangled finger. As I opened my left hand, which to this point was holding my finger, she saw the blood everywhere and being squimish immediately went for the keys to drive. I grabbed the nearest thing I could find to stop the bleeding, a dirty sock. We call Faith and Bro. Don to get directions and they leave to meet us at the hospital. Lisa got her first driving lesson in El Salvador with me holding my bleeding finger in a dirty sock with ice and talking on the phone to get directions. Oh yeah, did I mention that Kristal's brakes are more sensitive than a bi-polar teenager during puberty? Look at the brakes and they freeze up! So, we take off to the hospital, driving and halting through the streets. Thankfully, our hour long trip through the city showed us many of the side streets and the hospital was easy to find. Faith and Bro. Don meet us at the hospital and we go inside.

Lisa waits outside the treatment area and Bro. Don came in to translate for me. As Lisa is filling out the paperwork she hears the nurse ask, "Dirty or clean?" Well, thinking she's asking about the wound she says it's dirty. Then the nurse asks if we want to keep it and she's like YES we want to keep his finger. Well, the nurse asked about my sock, which was dirty, and when she asked if I wanted to keep it I had a very logical reply. "Of course I do, you know how hard it is to find socks in my size here?" Well, Don translated that for me after he stopped laughing hysterically. Meanwhile, I took the bloody sock and stuffed it into my pocket. They stitched up my finger with 4 stitches, gave me antibiotic, a tetanus shot, and pain killers. They wrapped my finger up and sent us on our merry way. All this work in the ER cost us a whopping $179, about $9,821 less than it would in the US. They don't seem to have splints anywhere so I ate a popsicle and used the stick for a splint (how creative of me!) and we proceeded to go out to eat. We still had Benihana's, although it was quite fun eating with chopsticks with my middle finger sticking straight up.

Wow...what a free day! I think I'll pass on the next one.